Posts Tagged ‘inventory Management’

How does your purchasing department currently manage its vendor base? For instance, does your enterprise rely upon enterprise mobility solutions that empower your purchasing department to better manage incoming shipments of raw materials and finished goods? Or, do you handcuff your purchasing department by asking them to rely upon manual vendor management practices, ones that aren’t live and can’t possibly give your company the kind of up-to-the-minute data it needs to manage its inventory, its vendor’s deliveries, and most importantly, its supply chain? Granted, these three questions are set up to lead you, the reader, into the eventual conclusion that manual processes are problematic and costly, while enterprise mobility solutions are accurate and timely. Well, the simple fact is, manual processes are costly. They are problematic and time-consuming and most importantly, they do make it extremely difficult to manage a vendor base in today’s fast paced business environment. Put differently, if your company is using manual processes, but your competitors are using handheld rugged computers, then whom do you think is better able to manage its supply chain? Bottom line, your company needs to do away with manual processes.

Does your enterprise currently rely upon vendor managed inventory? Do you view your vendor relationships, and agreements, as pivotal to your supply chain and the long-term success of your enterprise? More importantly, have you come to rely upon vendor managed inventory agreements in order to reduce monthly carrying charges for your company? If you have answered yes to each of these aforementioned questions, then you understand full well how important it is to have access to immediate information about raw material, part and finished good availability. It is this access to vendor data that is of vital importance to ensuring that your agreements are properly managed. Upgrading to enterprise mobility hardware will make managing these agreements a much easier process. In essence, it will simplify how vendor data is transferred to your company and allow your procurement department to make better, more informed decisions.

Can upgrading your inventory management practices with enterprise mobility solutions help improve your overall cost structure? Can this then make your business more competitive in your market? Absolutely! As a value-added reseller, your business is based on providing turnkey solutions to your customer base. This includes providing multiple solutions from a vast and robust product line. However, you do not merely provide a product solution, but also need to provide a value-added service offering. VARS distinguish themselves by their ability to provide a readymade plan within a competitive cost structure, and that involves controlling inventory costs for the company. Unfortunately, most VARS rely upon manual approaches to inventory management, ones predicated on managing inventory via excel spreadsheets. Upgrading your inventory management practices with enterprise mobility hardware and software solutions, will not only improve how you manage that inventory, but will ultimately reduce your costs and improve your bottom line.

Have you tried in vain to convince yourself that your manual inventory management practices are working and are actually helping you to increase your inventory turnover rates? Have you relied too heavily on excel spreadsheets and tables to manage the complexities of your supply chain? Most importantly, how often have these processes let you down and left you with inaccurate inventory counts? Few companies ever take the time to answer these questions, let alone even ask them. Instead of relying upon enterprise mobility hardware to better manage their warehouse, they instead rely upon antiquated and outdated processes, ones that can not possibly keep pace with the speed of their business. Stronger warehouse management starts by doing away with these outdated processes and instead relying upon real-time tracking through mobility management solutions. If your enterprise wants to increase its inventory turnover rates, then it must finally put an end to using manual processes. Those processes may have worked when you first started, but they can not be a part of any long-term supply chain solution. So, how can the right enterprise software help your company better manage its warehouse and increase your turnover rates?

How can upgrading to an inventory management software platform reduce the costs associated with inventory audits? In order to answer this question, think of how time-consuming, redundant and repetitive the dreaded inventory audit can be. Think of how much it costs to perform these audits and the frustration you encounter when uncovering inaccurate inventory levels and counts. At the end of every quarter, and every fiscal year, employees manually count inventory in order to reconcile actual inventory against what is reported on the “books”. Some companies force their employees to give up their weekends, while the vast majority must cover overtime to perform what most agree is a mundane task. It is both time consuming and costly. However, it need not be this way!

The business environment today is full of uncertainty. There is a constant threat of a double dip recession, the issue of business financing and the growing concern of a consumer base that is at best unsure, and at worst indifferent. This reality means businesses must have enough inventory to capture sales, but not so much that they lose money through high financing costs. So how does a company decide between too much and too little inventory? Well, some rely upon guesswork, others continually mull over sales forecasts and yet others try to manage inventory with an excel spreadsheet, which is neither live nor accurate. However, the right inventory management software can not only reconcile inventory, but it can link together the entire mobile business application of a company so that individuals in the field have as much information as those in the warehouse. So, how can the right inventory software empower your company to better manage its inventory? Read on!

Has the time come for your company to upgrade its inventory practices? Your company needs to keep pace with a customer base whose mobile business applications require quicker response times! Isn’t it time your inventory do away with manual processes predicated on trying to avoid data entry errors, errors that are commonplace when individuals must register inventory levels by entering keystrokes into a computer? More importantly, isn’t your company tired of relying upon manual processes such as inventory cards and having to pay warehouse employees for quarterly and year-end manual counting periods? If you’ve answered yes to each of these questions, then it’s time to upgrade your inventory and supply chain management practices. One of the best ways to improve inventory count accuracy is by bar-coding inventory and using bar code scanners that are durable, easy to maintain, have low maintenance costs and dramatically improve operational effectiveness.

How does your company handle customer returns? Do you charge customers a restocking fee or merely accept the return at no charge? Perhaps you’ve been led to believe that charging a restocking fee will damage your customer relationships or that it will negatively impact future business. Maybe your concern lies with how your competitors will react to your company charging restocking fees when they don’t. Regardless of why, your company must charge a restocking fee. In fact, there are simply no excuses for not charging customers for returning product. This is especially true for those instances were the customer is merely returning product due to pricing or a mistake in ordering. Granted, defective product is one thing but functional product is another. So why should your company charge a restocking fee? To answer this question, consider the following points below. Continue reading “Restocking Fees, Should Your Company Charge Them?” »

Managing slow moving inventory is never easy. There’s the constant concern of the inventory becoming damaged or worse, ruined beyond repair. Companies must therefore be proactive in selling this inventory when the opportunity presents itself. In this regard, a number of companies become concerned with the impacts and costs of slow moving inventory on their bottom line. So, how does inventory become obsolete and what strategies can companies adopt to stop it from happening?